(Eaton) Lofts at 276

[Acitta]

Well, there was a clothing store and a shoe store downtown for many years, but they closed a few years ago. If you look at historical pictures, the downtown was the main shopping district. Then they built the suburban malls, which hollowed out the downtowns of many small cities. It will take a few years for retailers to discover how to serve the new residents that will be filling the new buildings downtown.

Yeah, it used to be a popular place. There was a good video clip posted on Reddit a couple weeks ago filmed around the 1950 or 1960s if I remember correctly. There were people everywhere. It was fascinating to see. In fact, King Street was pedestrianized in this video clip so there were people walking down the streets, sitting around chatting and going in and out of shops. But then yes, as you said, suburban malls and changes in urban planning really altered things.

I often wonder how well chain stores would fare downtown these days. Independent businesses are one thing and they are commonly tenants you see take up shop in downtowns, but larger cities also attract chain stores. I'd be curious to see if stores you commonly see in malls - Forever 21, Sephora, Paragon, Roots, H&M and so  on - would have success downtown Kitchener yet. Not that I want to see downtown have the same things our malls do, but these are popular stores and could attract everyday people down there.

I'll try to find the video clip I'm talking about, it was interesting to see. Edit: Found it! It was definitely the main shopping district in the city back then: https://www.dropbox.com/s/mf4eoibcrz2p65...r.mp4?dl=0

It seems doubtful that the big chains would open stores in the downtown. Their stores in the malls are easy to get to by transit, and they may not have enough of a market to open more stores. People are not going to go downtown for what they can already find in the malls, especially suburban people with cars. It is better to have unique independents and stores from smaller specialized chains.